


our amaranth hands (the world's loveliest puzzle)

by blasphemyincarnate



Series: solangelo auctober [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, POV Second Person, Prompt Fill, Solangelo AUctober 2019, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, TW: Brief Implied Abuse, flowers on ur skin where ur soulmate gets hurt AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-10 19:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20857013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blasphemyincarnate/pseuds/blasphemyincarnate
Summary: Your name isNICO DI ANGELO//WILL SOLACEand your soulmate isNONEXISTENT//DEAD





	our amaranth hands (the world's loveliest puzzle)

Your name is Nico di Angelo and you don’t have a soulmate.

Or maybe you do. Mama and Bianca say you do, and they haven’t lied to you yet. But no flowers have ever appeared on your skin, not even nine years after you’re born. And Luca Giovanni from school says it’s impossible for someone to not get hurt at all for nine years straight. 

Daddy’s lawyer takes you and Bianca to the Lotus Hotel, and you ask for Mama for days. “Mama’s going away,” Bianca tells you. She tells you this in English, because she’s trying so hard to learn this new language in this new world. You try too, because it makes Bianca happy.

One day in the Lotus Hotel, you wake up and think you catch the faintest impression of a rose on your cheek. Roses mean blood was spilled - you know that. Maybe you do have a soulmate, maybe they have a cut on their cheek. You think you’re real sorry if they do and squint a little harder at the maybe-rose. You probably don’t have a soulmate, actually. It’s probably better if you don’t. 

Your name is Nico di Angelo and you don’t have a soulmate.

~~~

Your name is William Solace and your soulmate is probably dead.

Mama says the very small hydrangeas on your skin have been there since you were born. And in school, Mrs. Saito taught the class that hydrangeas mean emotional pain. Everyone looked at you when she said that. Your hydrangeas are very small and look more like freckles than anything, but everyone knows.

You think all these hydrangeas have to mean very bad emotional pain, and you can’t think of anything more emotionally painful than death. 

One day when you’re seven, Mama brings a bad man home. He smells like the hospital Mama works at, but bad. He smells like sickness and death and you think about your soulmate.

That night, you poke at the bandaid on your cheek and wonder if dead bodies still grow flowers.

Your name is William Solace and your soulmate is probably dead.

~~~

Not having a soulmate doesn’t bother you as much as people think it should. In fact, you don’t even mind for most of your life. It’s only when you meet Percy Jackson that you mind a little, because you think having Percy Jackson as your soulmate wouldn’t be so bad.

It’d even be nice, you think. For your soulmate to be a hero.

You’re only ten, and ten-year-olds have big dreams. You don’t think about how you can see a rose growing on Percy’s skin where Annabeth was hit, and you don’t think about the soft gray lilies in his hair.

You’re only ten and you don’t think about how it’d be hard living up to a hero-soulmate. That night you whisper to Bianca that Percy Jackson might be the best thing that happens to you. She smiles at you very softly but you think it looks a little sad.

She whispers something in Italian but you’re already asleep.

~~~

Running away from home is a lot harder than it seems and yet a lot easier than it is at the same time. That’s what pops into your head as you pay for your _ Greyhound _ticket with shaking hands and crumpled bills.

Mama helped you do it. She snuck into your room in the middle of the night and said, “Will, sweetie, you need to go away from here, okay? I love you, remember that, okay?” She pressed the crumpled bills into your hand and drove you out to the bus stop and told you what to do. The last time you’ll see your mother for a long time, the shadows of two am are mixing with the bruises on her collarbone. You can’t tell which is which.

The Greyhound man looks at you funny so you stand up straighter and force the tremble out of your voice. Your name is Will Solace and you’re on your way to meet Daddy. 

You haven’t seen Daddy in a long time. Mama showed you pictures, sometimes. Your hair is like his, but your eyes are Mama’s. 

The boy sitting next to you on the Greyhound has lilies spiraling up and down his forearms. You ask him what they mean, because you’ve never seen lilies before, and Mrs. Saito didn’t teach lilies.

He looks at you for a moment and, in later years, you’ll use the word solemn to describe his expression. “Lilies mean your soulmate is dead.”

In later years, when you start using _ solemn_, you’ll wish you’d talked to the boy some more. He looked _ solemn _ and he looked _ lonely _. But for now, you just nod and put your hands in your lap and wonder what all your tiny hydrangeas mean.

Maybe it’s a coma, you think. Mama taught you that word two years ago. Maybe your soulmate isn’t dead, maybe your soulmate is in a coma.

~~~

You’re thirteen and fresh from the battlefield the first time you notice your back. It’s filled by a large white rose. White flowers mean scars. You know that.

But it means you do have a soulmate and in between hoping they’re okay and hating yourself for caring, you find the tiniest glimmer of happiness. You do have a soulmate. You’re not destined to be alone forever.

Will Solace is only fourteen, but when he runs past you with a tattered shirt hanging off his shoulders, you can see scars. You entertain the idea that Will Solace is your soulmate, then you think the Fates couldn’t be so cruel as to put you with a son of Apollo. He is everything you’ll never be.

Another camper runs by, whose name you don’t know, and you can see a scar poking out of her shirt too. Actually, a lot of people have scars on their backs. This’ll be harder than you think. 

You don’t think about Will Solace again, not until you’re in Europe with Jason and Cupid makes you admit your big secret. “I had a crush on Percy Jackson,” you say, and you hate how it feels a little like liberation.

~~~

You see Mama again when you’re twelve. She comes to camp and stands by the pine tree very patiently, you don’t know how long. You think the tall camper from Hermes sees her first, and you make a mental note to thank him sometime.

She’s dyed her pretty red hair golden-brown sometime in the last five years. But her eyes are the same ones you’ve been seeing in the mirror for twelve years.

Mama apologizes for not coming sooner and really, you’re too old to be sobbing into her shirt like this. But you’re doing it anyway.

You ask her what took her so long. You don’t mention that you haven’t seen Daddy once since you got here, because you know now that he’s _ Apollo _and he’s got bigger things to worry about than his son. 

“Sweetie,” she says, just the way she used to. “Sometimes soulmates aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.”

That’s all she says and you don’t really understand it then, but it also doesn’t matter. Mama’s here and it’s all gonna be okay.

Then Mama goes again but promises she’ll stay in New York. The next year, your big brother Lee dies. The year after that, Michael. And all of a sudden you’re cabin counselor and everything is going wrong at once and Kayla’s dyed her hair green - you don’t know if that’s allowed - and Austin cries at night all the time and-

Soulmates really aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, you think. Yours would’ve come to help you long ago if they were.

~~~

You meet your soulmate, who apparently does exist, sometime during the battle. At least, you think you do, because there are amaranths curling around your palms and over your wrists. You don’t remember much from Sunday school, but you remember curling Italian that told you amaranths grew from where your soulmate first touches you. 

You find yourself remembering Will Solace’s bright blue eyes and scarred back and, “My hands are still shaking, see?”

His hydrangeas seem bigger than they were a year ago. You wonder why that is. Maybe it means fading.

You sit in your cabin until you fall asleep, and you wake up to a knock at the door and one of your first real friends in ages. Jason notices the amaranths and can barely hide his grin. “Dude! That’s so neat, who is it?”

_ Will Solace _, you want to say. But you don’t know. So you stare at him, trying to come up with an answer, until he seems to think you don’t want to talk about it and the moment is past. 

Sometimes you wish you’d try a little harder to do this whole communication thing. Jason probably does, too. Will probably hates you for what you let happen to Octavian and- he might not hate you as much if you were better at talking.

~~~

Nico di Angelo is your Hera be damned soulmate. But- he hadn’t mentioned it. And there was no way he’d missed the tingling as the amaranths grew from between your interlocked fingers. There was no way he’d missed them.

“Maybe he doesn’t like making a big deal out of soulmates,” Lou Ellen suggests. She hasn’t left after delivering her Romans back for you to check for injuries. 

You frown and waves off the girl you just finished up with. “Maybe.”

Lou Ellen rolls her eyes and sits down on the bed in front of you. “Will,” she says. “It’s not you, okay? You’re an amazing person anyone would be lucky to have as a soulmate, and Nico probably just doesn’t want to make a huge deal out of this. You’re overanalyzing again. It’s not you.”

You blink at her for a moment, then say, “Lou, get off the bed.”

She gets off with a grin and she knows you mean thank you.

~~~

_ “Nico?” _

_ “Will. Hi.” _

_ “How’s your three days been? I tried to be around more often, but there’s a lot of people you know, I have to make my rounds, plus Kayla gets pissy if I don’t leave for meals and at night-” _

_ “Will, stop rambling. You’re fine.” _

_ “Oh. Yeah.” _

_ “...” _

_ “...” _

_ “How… how have you been?” _

_ “Wait, you’re asking about me? Mr. Almost Faded Into Shadows Like Four Days Ago?” _

_ “Shut up, Solace. How’ve you been?” _

_ “Uh, fine, mostly. There’s been something on my mind, though.” _

_ “Really? What- what is it?” _

_ “I think your hands ask well enough.” _

~~~

You press your hand against your _ soulmate'_s and think the flowers fit together like the last piece of the world’s loveliest puzzle.

**Author's Note:**

> solangelo auctober 2019 - tuesday, october first - soul bond
> 
> yeah I have no idea what I'm doing either, this is the first time I've tried second POV  
I'm assuming soul bond means soulmate AU, which I did have fun with because I've never written one? this is a lot of firsts for me  
this final product is highkey unedited, hopefully I can come through at some point and edit  
I'm convinced I was going somewhere with the beginning but then I was rushing to get it finished and it didn't happen
> 
> comments, kudos, and bookmarks make the world go round <3 love you guys

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [even when the night changes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24854107) by [sxnshot (blasphemyincarnate)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blasphemyincarnate/pseuds/sxnshot)


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